The theatre of science; a volume of progress and achievement in the motion picture industry (1914)

222 CSe ceeatre when they are enabled to observe the comparative response of this public as betwreen the two modes of entertainment. Whether or not this vievirpoint will impress these gentlemen with the necessity for price bargains to tempt the new public to patronize their stage offerings, one may not doubt that the season of 1914-15 will witness a healthier condition in the amusement field generally than has existed for many years. With the Messrs. Shubert establishing a mighty film company with extensive affiliations and with several of the largest playhouses of vast seating capacity as the Manhattan Opera House, the Strand and the New York theatres and possibly Oscar Hammerstein's new opera house, permanently relegated to feature films, and with the Shuberts presenting photoplays in many of their theatres, the tendency is to greatly reduce the number of two-dollar-a-seat playhouses in all the large cities, and as these latter will more than ever before be confined to bijou auditoriums, with seating capacity from 200 to 1,200, the spectacle of crowded houses so rarely on view of late, should once more stim.ulate the producers, of whom there are fewer at this writing than at any period since those days when the field of the theatre was regarded as too precarious to induce investments. But while the trend toward "little" theatres will help to solve managerial problems in the high-priced field, the wonder is that some genius with a grasp on proportions does not tempt fate with an effort to compete with the vogue of the photoplay in the larger auditoriums. Who shall say that if photoplays can prosper in the most expensively conducted playhouses of large size at prices one-half as high as those prevailing in the best legitimate houses, that performances